Thirteenth-Century Origins of Punitive or Exemplary Damages: The Statute of Westminster I (1275) and Roman Law

This article highlights the importance of the Statute of Westminster I in the history of the concept of punitive or exemplary damages in the Anglo-American legal tradition. Maitland had long ago noted that its provisions allowing for double and triple reparation had similarities to duplum and triplum remedies in Roman law. But this tentative hypothesis has not been further explored by scholars. In this article I suggest that the antecedents for the provisions on multiple reparation in Westminster I may lie in the Roman law delicts of furtum or iniuria and their links to actions in duplum and triplum, based on conceptual similarities in the substantive nature of the wrongdoing. This article explores possible avenues for direct Roman law influence as well as indirect means of transmission, namely by non-Roman law sources of concepts analogous to Roman law.